


Debriefing

by SingingShantiesAllTheWay



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Non-Sexual, Other, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:48:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24313048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingShantiesAllTheWay/pseuds/SingingShantiesAllTheWay
Summary: Before Wilde was a handler, he /had/ a handler. Given the nature of the work, a probationary period was de rigeur.It didn't have to be unpleasant.But it was.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	Debriefing

Oscar's handler doesn't look up from his desk when he enters, simply waves him to a seat, which directive Oscar obeys. He adopts the lazy, semiliquid slouch that is his usual posture, settles his accustomed arch half-smirk over his features. He is Oscar Wilde, and that is what the Meritocracy expects.

Oscar is, inwardly and outwardly, perfectly composed. He _hates_ this, hates it with every fiber of his being, but there is nothing of that hatred in his expression or to be found in his mind. He's made damn sure of that.

( _Earlier, in his rooms, Oscar broke down. He drew a bath, as hot as the hotel's elementally-heated water tanks would allow him, nearly hot enough to blister and it wasn't, could never be hot enough to make him feel clean, to boil away and slough off the filthy residue of a scouring that hadn't even happened yet._

_He wept, there in the steaming, scalding water, hunched and hugging his knees until the bathwater went cold, his broken sobbing violent enough to make his ribs ache._

_Oscar wept until there was nothing left inside him. It was, he knew, the only way to remain safe. Give them what they needed, and have nothing else there for them to take._ )

He idly watches his handler now, waiting in placid silence for the signal that he has been deemed worthy of attention. It's never long in coming - the slim, middle-aged man assigned as his keeper can only keep up the pretense of disinterest for so long before his curiosity and unconcealed pleasure at Oscar's presence overcome the charade.

It's never long in coming. It's never long enough.

He's correct. Only a handful of minutes pass before his handler sets aside his pen and looks up. There is anticipation in his gaze and a cold smile on his lips, and Oscar only mirrors it, gives him precisely what he wants.

"I received your report, Mister Wilde," he begins, and slides his pince-nez down his nose a touch, reviewing a piece of paper that is, ostensibly, the brief that Oscar had penned and sent along before his... interlude. "Your information appears adequate, given your level of experience."

Carefully, Oscar does not bridle at this slight provocation - and that is precisely what it is, a test of his control, unnecessary but one his handler cannot quite resist. Oscar's sardonic smile doesn't waver; he gives a one-shouldered shrug and replies mildly, "As you say, sir. One hopes to learn quickly, at least."

His handler's mouth twitches in a tiny smirk, and he lays the paper back down on his desk.

"A point of considerable interest, however - and I commend you on your observation - is this _ring_ your target wore." He looks at Oscar over the rim of his glasses, and the smile deepens, nothing warm in it. "Let us see if we can identify it, mm? Come here, Mister Wilde."

( _Eventually, hollow as an empty grave, Oscar hauled himself out of the freezing bath. He toweled himself off and lay naked and exposed atop the enormous bed, and stared at nothing while he let the onslaught of cold dread roll over him, let it saturate his mind and freeze his belly and his spine until there was nothing left of him but numb acceptance._

_It wouldn't last, Oscar knew. Later, it would thaw and shatter and break him again, but it would last long enough for this._

_Expressing nothing, feeling nothing, he stood and dressed and rang for a cab and left his rooms like a beautiful and soulless automaton._ )

Oscar stands and crosses the room with the sensual grace which marks him as a target for attention wherever he goes, aware of his handler's sharpened attention, of the _hunger_ that fairly radiates off the man. The numbness is intact, his mind bereft of anything other than the details of his mission and the parade of safe banalities that has comprised his existence since the last time he had submitted himself to this examination.

His handler looks at him expectantly and Oscar - perhaps a little spitefully - makes a display of lowering himself to kneel on the floor before him. If the man suspects the ulterior motive, he gives no sign of it. Rather, he appears appreciative, Oscar's dramatic demonstration of submission sharpening his gaze.

His handler leans forward.

"You take to this so well, Mister Wilde," he says softly. His hand - not so much slender as nearly skeletal - cups Oscar's chin, tilts his face up far enough that it strains his throat, makes him involuntarily swallow, which only heightens his handler's amusement. The man's eyes are an arresting, vivid blue and Oscar _hates_ the inescapable, cold transfixion when they trap his gaze, pinning him to the back of his own mind like a moth to cardboard.

He doesn't bother to hide the dread. That ship sailed the first time he was ever subjected to this; his handler knows. His handler loves it. His handler smiles and the queasy slide of his amusement slicks through Oscar's mind, greasing the way for the skittering razor-edge of the man's magic as it peels back Oscar's defences to examine his shivering, exposed thoughts.

There is no delicacy here; no caution, no attempt to mitigate the effects. It is a sudden, brutal violation and he can feel the exquisite agony of it, whole and entire.

Dimly, Oscar can feel his spine seize into rigidity, feels the strain in his shoulders, the painful stretch of his throat as his head snaps back; hears a pitiful, anguished keening that he knows is his own voice wordlessly begging for the invasion to end.

It does no good.

It never does.

**Author's Note:**

> Unquestionably a hard left from canon and Pathfinder mechanics, and most certainly not everyone's cup of tea. Written as a "what-if" corollary piece to a larger work.


End file.
